Chapter 4: Our Breakfast and Return to Port.

I was sitting in the cockpit, having been there for a couple of hours already, music playing softly from the cockpit speakers and enjoying my morning coffee when Kay came up out of the cabin. She still had on the pajama bottoms and my tee shirt, her hair was mussed but not wildly, she looked pretty good. "Good morning, how did you sleep?" I asked her.

"A lot better and a lot longer than I thought I would. I figured the nap I took yesterday, after you rescued me, would have kept me up last night or at least caused me to get up earlier than this. I think the quiet and the total darkness of the forward cabin just felt good. I didn't even hear the water lapping against the side of the boat. What time is it?" she asked as she was looking around the anchorage we were in.

"It's a little after nine. There is coffee and fruit if you would like. I have more than enough so please help yourself. I'm sorry but I'm not big on breakfast and don't usually have more than that even when I am home."

"That's okay," she said. "I like fruit in the morning. It's seems peaceful here."

"The quiet of this little cove is a major reason I come here. As I told you yesterday, I rarely have company here and I like it that way. It gives me a chance to relax and to think. I guess you would say I am multi-tasking because I also read a little and plan out my next week or so based on what I already know I have to do. Of course the plans all go to heck in a hand basket if I get a panic call either from one of my regulars or from some company calling me in to bail them out as they're up the creek without a paddle because their network has crashed." I continued, "I usually stay here until about noon before getting underway for home. I should have asked last night but do you have to be somewhere any time soon?"

She responded, "I like the quiet too and usually I don't get enough of it. This is my one weekend off for the summer and I don't know what I was thinking when I agreed to go with Todd for a party weekend. I should have been suspicious Friday night when he was so insistent I come along for the boat trip, He must have been planning then to drug me. I was foolish and was messing around with him some but still keeping him at bay when the party broke up about two in the morning; it's why we got a late start heading out on the boat. He was imitating an octopus Friday night and I thought he would behave better in the light of day. I guess I thought he wouldn't try anything when there was enough light so that anyone could see what he was doing. I wanted to do something, anything, so I could say I had a good time over the weekend when I returned for my lunch shift at the restaurant tomorrow. Then the other girl told me he roofied my drink and I started looking for a way out. I saw you and your boat as we were going by and I figured I couldn't be any worse off with you and probably a lot safer. Uh ... please don't take that negatively. I went from the frying pan at night into the fire the next day, yesterday. I really thought I would be safer with an older man. Damn, that came out wrong too."

I interrupted her "I understand what you mean and I'm not taking it wrong." To make sure she knew I really wasn't upset, I added with a chuckle, "Woe is me; I'm headed for the rest home now."

She smiled and it lit up her face. "I really did have a good evening talking with you and playing chess. I didn't feel any pressure to do something I might not have wanted to and you proved yourself, not that you needed to, as a gentleman, a kind and considerate host. Not to mention you also babysat me while I was knocked out yesterday afternoon. As far as getting back goes; I'm fine as long as I'm back in my apartment before ten tonight so I can get ready for my lunch shift tomorrow."

"Well, when you have pulled as many girls out of the channel as I have, the gentleman and host thing sort of comes with the territory."

That got her laughing and she slapped my arm lightly while saying "Stop, this can't be routine for you. Can it?"

"No, it's not routine. You are the first woman I've had out on the boat with me in at least six months and I didn't even consider making it an overnighter with the last one. I was set up by someone who thought I needed some female companionship. A woman in the IT department of one of my regular companies had convinced me to take her, her husband and her friend out for a day sail. Since I lived closer to the friend I picked her up on my way down to the marina. It was half an hour later than when I said we would be leaving and the woman and her husband still hadn't shown up. I called her on her cell phone and she made some excuse why they wouldn't be coming but I should go out anyway with her friend seeing as she was there and I had picked her up and all. It was a real set-up; I don't think she ever intended to come out with us. It was all a ruse to get me together with the friend. The friend had been divorced for a few years, had teenaged kids she needed help with and had baggage out the wazoo. She was a little too eager to go out for the day with someone she had never met before and she kept hinting we could go below and make use of the forward compartment. I don't think she was just horny. I never saw her again and I don't even remember her name now."

"And you really think it was a set-up, on purpose, to get you involved with this woman?"

"Of course it was. I've been single long enough to know that married women aren't happy when they see single men and they just have to do something to fix that. They all have single girlfriends, never married, divorced, or widowed, they know are husband hunting and they can't help but try to put the poor guy together with one of those girlfriends, it's in their genes."

"Kind of cynical don't you think?"

"Cynical, no, realistic, yes. It or something like it has happened to me too many times for me not to recognize it when it happens again. I don't hold it against the IT woman, as I said, it's in her genes. When a woman gets married she has a list of her unmarried friends somewhere in her mind and she wants those friends to be just as happy (or miserable) as she is, so she tries to find single men to put together with those friends. She thinks she is doing everyone a favor and she is also looking for bragging rights so she can claim credit for matching up the single friend and rescuing the poor, benighted single guy. At your age you just might be going out on a regular basis with some guy and you start trying to find a date for your single friend who never seems to have one. At least, at your age, you aren't trying to put together permanent matches, you're just trying to alleviate some perceived loneliness, maybe just trying to get him or her over their shyness but you still can't seem to let single people be single. You may not have thought about it that way but you know I'm right."

"Huh, you are right, I never have thought about it before but now that you mention it I've seen girls at school getting fixed up by their friends who already have guys they are exclusive with. I've even been approached by a couple of girls asking me if I wanted to go out on a blind date. I've been targeted just like you've been. Guys don't do this?"

"No, a guy doesn't even think of things like hooking up a friend just because he is single. The single guy has to ask to be set-up and then the guy he asks will normally go to his own girlfriend and have her make the connection for him. If the set-up works, it works, all well and good. If it doesn't, it's no skin off his nose and he never even thinks about it again but I'll bet his girlfriend does. He isn't being callous, he just doesn't give a damn because it isn't him or his girlfriend and he doesn't see how it affects him. Now, what about you? I would think a pretty girl like you must be beating the guys off with a stick. And what do you mean it's your only weekend off for the summer?"

"Well, I am getting to the point I really could use a car and I think by the end of this next semester it's going to move into the 'need a car' range instead of just 'could use a car'. So I'm working as a waitress at the Outback to get some money for the car. We are busiest there on the weekends and back at the end of last semester I talked it over with my boss. He likes my work and agreed to let me work every weekend except this one. The bottom line is, this is my only weekend off because I want to work weekends so I can make the most money I can for that car. When it comes to dating well, yeah, I get hit on fairly frequently and asked out, both in school and at the restaurant. With most of the guys and all of the girls that ask me out I just kind of gently brush them aside, especially at the restaurant. Only once in a while do I accept an invitation from a guy. I work hard to stay focused at school and really don't want to be distracted. I told you I almost never have more than three dates with any one guy, they are scared off when they learn what program I am in and they don't want to be with a brainiac, someone who, they think, is probably smarter than they are. Either that or by the third date they are getting pretty demanding and I'm not cooperating so they move on. I'm not some frightened virgin afraid of guys or physical intimacy but I'm also not out looking for a hook-up when I go out with a guy. To be truthful when it comes to sex I can take it or leave it. The very few times I've tried it I wasn't very impressed. I don't see what the big deal is."

I was shocked when she told me that. It was way more information than I ever thought she would give me; I wasn't expecting it and I wasn't prepared for it. I also didn't know how to handle it. I met her yesterday, less than twenty-four hours ago. Some of the information she gave me was of a very personal nature. I wanted to respond but before I did I needed to think about all she had told me and how to answer her. Did I want to risk offending her by giving her an answer that was equally as personal or did I want to give her a less than honest answer. By this time it was ten-thirty so I decided, for the time being, to change the subject and lighten things up some. I said, "Let's clean up from breakfast and go for a swim before we get ready to leave here."